Fellowships Available to Support Archival Research

Three people look over archival materials on a table in the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections

Several exciting opportunities are available in 2025 for those who want to use the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections (NUASC) records to aid their research and storytelling.

The New England Regional Fellowship Consortium’s (NERFC) fellowship program is designed to promote research across the 30-member consortium of institutions and repositories in metropolitan areas throughout New England, including NUASC. NERFC grants two dozen awards every year and fellows receive a stipend of $5,000 with the requirement that they conduct their research in at least three of the participating institutions for periods of two weeks each. Applications are due February 1, 2025, and can be submitted through NERFC’s page on the Massachusetts Historical Society website.

The Reckonings Project invites applications for artist(s)-in-residence to engage with hidden histories of Boston and/or the New England region. The artist or team of artists selected will co-design interactions with Reckonings and community partners and archives—and, as feasible, with local community arts organizations or libraries. Selected artists will receive $10,000 for individuals and $12,000 for a team. Artists have the option to submit a budget of up to $5,000. NUASC will provide archival support and collaboration for artists working with Reckonings. Applications are due February 24, 2025, and can be submitted on the Reckonings website.

The Boston Public Library (BPL) is offering a new four-week fellowship in collaboration with NUASC this year. The “Telling Boston Stories Fellowship” is intended to support research projects that focus on the Boston people and communities often left out of the historical narrative. This fellowship can support many types of projects, both academic and artistic. Fellows will receive a $4,500 stipend and will be expected to spend four weeks working with collections, primarily at the BPL and Northeastern University, though trips to other Boston cultural heritage institutions or research centers may be included. The weeks do not have to be consecutive. Applications are due March 3, 2025. For more information and to apply, visit the BPL’s fellowship page.

For any questions about these fellowships, using our collections, or what other types of collaborations and research projects are possible, email Molly Brown at mo.brown@northeastern.edu.

Join us for the 2025 Reading Challenge!

The Northeastern University Library is excited to announce our second annual Reading Challenge! We’re welcoming 2025 with new themes, new prizes, and more events to celebrate reading at all of Northeastern’s global campuses.

Logo for the 2025 Northeastern University Library Reading Challenge

How to Participate

Step 1: Read a Book

Northeastern librarians have chosen a reading theme for each month of 2025. Your challenge is simply to read a book (or listen to an audiobook) that fits the theme.

Need some inspiration? Librarians have put together a list of suggested e-books and audiobooks in Libby for readers to enjoy each month. If you’re in Boston, you can also stop by the monthly tabling event in the Snell Library lobby to browse on-theme books or pick up a book and settle in for some cozy reading time at a drop-in reading party. Check out the library calendar for more information.

Step 2: Tell Us About It

Once you’ve read your book, fill out a brief form about what you read. At the end of every month, one name will be drawn from the pool of participants and the winner will receive a prize. Prizes vary each month and include gift cards, posters, Northeastern swag, and more. There are also special prize drawings for readers who complete three, six, and twelve months of the challenge.

The Themes

Ready to get started? The themes for 2025 are:

Reading Challenge monthly themes

January: A memoir or autobiography
February: A book based in a city where Northeastern has a campus
March: A book that has won or been shortlisted for an award
April: A book recommended by a librarian
May: A book set in your hometown or local area
June: A story of resistance
July: A collection of short stories, essays, or poetry
August: A book translated from another language
September: A book set somewhere you’d like to travel
October: A banned book
November: A book about the field you’re studying
December: A retelling of a classic myth, fairytale, or folktale

For more information on the challenge, visit the Reading Challenge page or contact Brooke Williams, Research & Student Success Librarian, at b.williams@northeastern.edu. Good luck and happy reading!

Library Associate Dean Patrick Yott Retires After 15 Years

Patrick Yott
Patrick Yott

The Northeastern University Library is bidding a bittersweet farewell to Associate Dean for Digital Infrastructure Patrick Yott, who is retiring at the end of the year.

Yott has served the Northeastern University Library for the past 15 years and the imprint he leaves will be long-lasting. An expert on digital scholarship, he founded and led a number of related library departments and spearheaded several initiatives that advanced the state of the art in applying digital technology to academic endeavors.

“Patrick has been a leader when it comes to the way that innovative technology can improve the nature of research,” said Dean of the Library Dan Cohen. “He has envisioned a major evolution in library practice, and helped shape the direction of digital scholarship at Northeastern University.”

Yott oversaw Library Technology Services, the Digital Scholarship Group, Research Data Services, Digital Production Services, and adjacent staff and projects. He also spearheaded the creation of the new Centers for Digital Scholarship as a place where new forms of scholarship from many subject areas can thrive and interact together.

Patrick Yott and Provost David Madigan at a retirement reception

He also directed a number of major grant-funded initiatives focused on using digital technology to advance research and teaching, including funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mellon Foundation, and Sloan Foundation.

Yott previously worked at the University of Virginia and Brown University.

“Patrick will be greatly missed, both professionally and personally,” Cohen said. “The way he united digital infrastructure, library processes, and scholarly thinking was unique, and led to many new and good ideas.”

With his retirement, Yott is eager to focus on two of his passions: photography and fly fishing. “We wish him all the best in his next stage,” Cohen added.

Mellon Foundation Awards $350,000 Grant to Fund Plan for AI Book Training Commons

The Northeastern University Library and Authors Alliance have received a $350,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to plan a public-interest book training commons for artificial intelligence.

With the increasingly essential role that artificial intelligence plays in society, the importance of including information from books in AI’s large language models becomes more pivotal. The more than 129 million books written over the past 500 years are vital training data sources for AI, providing a quality, breadth, and diversity of content related to human thinking that can strengthen AI’s scope and accuracy.

The main goal of this project is to develop a plan for either establishing a new organization or identifying the relevant criteria for an existing organization (or organizations) to attempt the work of creating and stewarding a large-scale public interest training commons of books.

“We are grateful for the Mellon Foundation’s generous support for this important new project,” said Dean of the Library Dan Cohen. “We and the Authors Alliance are excited to convene writers, publishers, Librarians, technologists, and other stakeholders to explore the best way for books to be incorporated in an ethical and productive way that serves the public.”

Northeastern University Library’s role will be to support and coordinate the project and to host one of the two meetings of stakeholders.

With this work, planners hope to answer key questions, including:

  • What are the right goals and mission for such an effort, taking into account both the long and short-term;
  • What are the technical and logistical challenges that might differ from existing library-led efforts to provide access to collections as data;
  • How to develop a sufficiently large and diverse corpus to offer a reasonable alternative to existing sources;
  • What a public-interest governance structure should look like that takes into account the particular challenges of AI development;
  • How do we, as a collective of stakeholders from authors and publishers to students, scholars, and libraries, sustainably fund such a commons, including a model for long-term sustainability for maintenance, transformation, and growth of the corpus over time;
  • Which combination of legal pathways is acceptable to ensure books are lawfully acquired in a way that minimizes legal challenges;
  • How to respect the interests of authors and rightsholders by accounting for concerns about consent, credit, and compensation; and
  • How to distinguish between the different needs and responsibilities of nonprofit researchers, small market entrants, and large commercial actors.

The Authors Alliance is an organization focused on creating resources and opportunities for authors interested in sharing their work broadly, in the interest of the public good.

2024 Reading Challenge Update: November Winner and What You Read This Month

Congratulations to Manju Selvakumaran, our November winner, who won a finals week care package!

With only December left to go, the 2024 Reading Challenge is almost over! Congratulations to everyone who has participated this year. If you’d still like to join us, make sure to read a book in December and tell us about it! For more chances to win, make sure to track your reading with the Massachusetts Center for the Book, too.

The November theme was “a relaxing or soul-soothing book.” Here are some of the books you enjoyed:

What You Read in November

Cover of Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
Find it at Snell Library | Find it at F.W. Olin Library

“Anne of Green Gables is one of those rare books that captures your heart from the very first page and refuses to let go. I was so engrossed in Anne’s world, her vivid imagination, and her journey in Avonlea that I couldn’t put the book down — I finished it all in a single day! This book isn’t just a story — it’s an experience that leaves you feeling uplifted and grateful for life’s simple joys. If you’re looking for a novel that’s full of charm, humor, and heart, I can’t recommend Anne of Green Gables enough. It’s a journey you won’t forget!” — Lavanya

“This was my first time reading this classic novel, and it was certainly soul-soothing. What better way to spend a weekend than in the gorgeous gardens of Anne’s friends in Avonlea?” — Bianca

Cover of Legends and Lattes


Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, Travis Baldree
Find it at F.W. Olin Library | Read the e-book

“It was just the most charming little story about a coffee shop and friendship and coffee.” — Sahil


Cover of The Soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, Sy Montgomery
Find it at Snell Library

“Something I would not normally read that I picked up in Cape Cod. Did you know it is octopuses, not octopi?” — Eva


Cover of The Stranger


The Stranger, Albert Camus
Find it at Snell Library | Find it at F.W. Olin Library

“Soul soothing because this is my favorite book. I reread it every time I need to reset myself. After midterms, I was stressed and needed to calm down, so I reached back to this.” — Svetlana

And What to Read in December

December’s theme challenges readers to explore new frontiers: “read a well-reviewed book in your least favorite genre.” Is it finally time to pick up that classic fantasy or sci-fi, or find out what all those romance fans are talking about? Here are some suggestions from the library.

If your least favorite genre is…

MEMOIR

Cover of Dirtbag Massachusetts

Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional, Isaac Fitzgerald
Find it at Snell Library | Read the e-book

“An endearing and tattered catalog of one man’s transgressions and the ways in which it is our sins, far more than our virtues, that make us who we are.” — New York Times

“It takes a great deal of trust to commit one’s shames — and more than that, the shames of others — to the page with honesty. Messily, lovingly, Fitzgerald lays it bare.” — L.A. Review of Books

ROMANCE

Cover of Romantic Comedy

Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld
Read the e-book

“While Sittenfeld knows the dramatic value of putting obstacles in the path of characters you’re rooting for, she also isn’t above giving readers what they want — and that’s exactly what she does in this affable, intelligently crafted tale of work and love.” — Guardian

“Sittenfeld deftly toggles between deconstructing a well-worn genre and leaning into its most predictable beats.” — The Atlantic

SCIENCE FICTION

Cover of the Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu
Find it at Snell Library | Find it at F.W. Olin Library | Listen to the audiobook

“If The Three-Body Problem […] helps bridge the gap between Eastern and Western SF (science fiction), it will have performed a great duty for the literary world. But as a science-fiction epic of the most profound kind, it’s already won. — NPR

“Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.” — Kirkus Reviews

HISTORICAL FICTION

Cover of The Covenant of Water

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
Find it at Snell Library | Read the e-book | Listen to the audiobook

“I would happily spend months on end with [this book] and I cried when it was done. While I don’t entirely believe in Verghese’s characters, I am moved by how much he loves them and, in so doing, makes the reader love them. It is a better world for having a book in it that chronicles so many tragedies in a tone that never deviates from hope.” — New York Times

“Verghese’s compassion for his ensemble, which subtly multiplies, infuses every page. […] Writerly strokes may occasionally feel broad, but like animate oil paintings, their effect is rich and reverberant. The further into the novel readers sink, the more power it accrues.” — Washington Post

SELF HELP

Cover of Wintering

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May
Listen to the audiobook

“There is so much to treasure here…I love the surprises of the book. Most of all, it is about the comforts of language. Reading is like slipping into a fur coat. May could protectively convince us of anything — the pleasures of cold weather, slow days, dusty libraries. They all start to seem like prizes and her sensual connoisseurship is a joy.” — Guardian

“Wintering does us the great service of reminding us that we are not alone in feeling undone. And although May’s book doesn’t offer a neat, easy ending in which she miraculously feels better, she does offer hope, an antidote to her tendency to ‘feel like a negative presence in the world.'” — New York Times

THRILLER

Cover of Our Missing Hearts

Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng
Find it at Snell Library | Listen to the audiobook

“I won’t give away the splendid conclusion of Ng’s book: suffice it to say, the climax deals with the power of words, the power of stories and the persistence of memory.” — New York Times

“Our Missing Hearts is saddled by grief. But it is also propelled by hope, less a grim prognosis of the future than an impassioned call for a full reckoning with the past.” — NPR

“Taut and terrifying, Ng’s cautionary tale transports us into an American tomorrow that is all too easy to imagine — and persuasively posits that the antidotes to fear and suspicion are empathy and love.” — Kirkus Reviews

If you need more inspiration and are on the Boston campus, visit our table December 10th and 11th to check out books and get librarian recommendations.

Make sure to tell us about your book before the end of the month for a chance to win the prize drawing. For additional chances to win, log your reading with the Massachusetts Center for the Book, too!

As always, happy reading and good luck in the December Reading Challenge!